Backed and interlined bow for use with arrows



P. ROUNSEVELLE ET AL BACKED AND INTERLINED BOW FOR USE WITH ARROWS June 5. 1928. 1,672,543

Filed A ril s. 192s Fig.1.

lnvenTors. Phillip Rounsevclle Elizabeth Rounsevene bYMMl M Afiys.

Patented June 1928.

UNITED STATES.

r, 1,672,543 PATENT OFFICE.

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OUISIANA.

Application 'filed April' 8,

This invention relates to archers bowsand has for its object to provide an improved backed or interlined bow which is simple and inexpensive to manufacture and which 5 has all the good qualities which a bow should have besides possessing additional good qualities.

' In order to give a better understanding of the advantages gained by our invention we will first refer briefly to the various steps considered necessary in the construction of ordinary bows and in general what has been done heretofore in constructing backed bows and laminatedbows.

The ordinary bow without an backing, in order to be useful and to stan up under the strain of constant bending for any length of time mustbe constructed with great care. In most woods 'the'grain must be carefully followed throughout, 'the 'bow must be left larger when tiny knots or flaws appear and great caution must be used not to bend the finished bow even an inch or two too far: all' this to avoid fraiture. Even inthe case of woods where the grain is interlocking and does not need to be carefully followe considerable caution must still be exercised. Considerable care must be used in selecting the best side of the stave (the. stave is a stick from, which a bow is made) for; the back, as

a small imperfection occurring at this point of greatest strain will usually cause a break.

Heretofore, to eliminate the danger of breaking, bows have been backed with hick- 7 cry, or rawhide or similar animal tissue such as cat gut and whale bone. All of these materials prevent breaking to a greater or lesser degree but have the disadvantage of;

slowing down the bow so that it will not shoot as far.

The explanation of this is that when the bow is fully drawn the back is, under 8. eat stretchingstrain, while the belly is un er a "great crushing strain and at some point hetween the two the wood of the bow is under a great shearing strain. This means that the back must be high in tensile strength, the belly must be high in crushing stren th and the central portion of the bow must e high in shearing strength. As noted before, the

hickory, raw hideor other backing. adds to the tensile strength of the back but also" slows down the'action of the bow.

Then, too, many bows which are made of laminations of two ormore woods tend to 1926. Serial No. 100,731.

shear or breakat the joints because of the difficulty, especially in the case of very hard woods, of making aglue joint the full length of the bow between the various laminae without the slightest imperfection or weak spot 'in the said joint. A small spot the size of a dime in which the two woods do not adhere perfectly to each other is suflicient to cause" the entire bow to come apart at the joint as the strain in many instances is hundreds of pounds to the square inch.

We are especially desirous of pointing out here that any bow, either backed or not backed, which has been heretofore constructed, and has stood .up'under a very hard degree .of actual use requires very select material and takes time and. pains to construct, all of which adds to its cost of manufacture.

As stated above one of the objects of our present invention is to provide a novel archers bow which will compare very favorably with the best, and consequently expensive, bows which have been heretofore made but which can be made relatively inexpensively and which does not require such fine selection of materials as has heretofore been considered necessary in constructing the better class of bows. w

In carrying out our invention we provide the limbs of the bow with a backing of paper fibre which has a relatively high tensile strength. We have found from experiment that the use of the paper fibre strengthens vention may either have a laminated structure or may be of a single 'piece of wood except for the backing. In the case of a laminated structure we propose to make each limb of laminations of wood and paper fibre, each laminated limb 'being backed with the paper fibre as'above described.

\ In order to give an understanding of the invention we have illustrated in the drawwith our invention has a-nimproved cast over 'a bow not so backed. I

The limbs of the bow embodying our in-' ing some selected embodiments thereof in inated bow embodying our invention;

showing parts of one of the limbs of a lam- "ance with our invention the bow is provided with a backing 5 of paper fibre which is secured to the back of the bow throughout, its length. @rdinary commercial paper fibre is suitable for this purpose, it being desirable, however, that the paper fibre should be relatively thin. This paper fibre can conveniently be applied to one face of the I bow stave before the bow is shaped there from, the fibre being secured to the bow stave by glue or any other suitable adhesive. After the fibre ply has been thus secured to the bow stave the latter may be worked down in usual way to fashion the bow.

Whilethe backing 5 may have fairly high tensile'strength yet because it is relatively .thin it adds no appreciable tensile strength to the back of the bow.

@ne of the important results accruing from the useofour improved backing is that the latter serves to bind down the fibres in the back of the bow and thereby prevent an initial s linter from forming which might eventua lycause a fracture of the bow.

We are aware that bows have heretofore been backed with hickory, raw hide and similar material but so far as we know in every case the backing is of considerable thickness and hasjfor its principal object to take the tensile strain to which the back of the 'bowis subjected, it being understood that when the bow is drawn the back of the bow is under high tensile strain while the belly is under a high compressing strain.

The object of the relatively thickbacking of rawhide hickory or other material which has been heretofore used is to furnish the necessary tensile strength to the back of the bow. It is found however, that while a relatively thick backing may add the desired tensile strength to the bow which will prevent it from breaking yet it tends to slow down the action of the bow and reduces its casting qualities. In the case of our present invention, however, the fibre backing is relatively thin (it preferably being not over one thirty-second of an inch thick and good results being secured with a backing considerably thinner), and is not intended to supply the tensile strength to the back of the bow, the wood of the bow itself being relied on for this purpose. Ihe

relatively thin fibre backing of our inven-v tion adds very little tensile strength to the back of the how, one of its prime functions being to bind down the fibres at the back of the bow and thus to prevent the formation of an initial splinter.

Wife find from experiments, however, that a bow backed with fibre has an improved cast over a similar how not so backed so that a fibre backed bow is notonly less liable to break than a how not so backed but it has improved casting qualities.

In Figs. 2 and 3 we have shown a laminated bow embodying our invention. In the construction shown in said figures each limb of the bow is made up of a plurality of laminations comprising strips of wood 6 alternating with strips of fibre 7, the wood and fibre strips being firmly glued together. In this embodiment also-the back of the how has Fig. I. v

Having thus described the. invention, what .is claimed is:

1. An archers bow provided with wooden limbs which are backed with a thin layer of paper fibre,'said backing strengthening the bow against-breaking without decreasing the cast of the bow.

2. An archers bow, the limbs of which are formed of alternate laminations of wood and paper fibre, said laminations extending parallel to the back, both limbs being backed with said paper fibre. p I

3. An archers bow provided with wooden limbs which are backed with a thin layerfli-of aper fibre, said layer strengthening the ow against breaking without decreasing the cast of the how by binding'down the the fibre backing 5 as shown in fibres of the wood and thereby preventing PHILLIP ROUNSEVELLE. ELIZABETH ROUNSEVELLE.

our hands 

